Phi for All

I love dogs, and I'm pretty accepting of their barking. I know they're just doing the job that's made them the most successful companion of humans. I would definitely try to change what I could on my end before trying to change a dog's habits. That said, there are limits. The only time I've ever said anything to a neighbor about their dog was because one of them wouldn't settle down when I did yard work while they worked in offices during the week. I don't mind if dogs spend 10 minutes establishing that I better stay on my side of the fence, but one of their dogs just wouldn't let it go no matter how long I was working. I'm not a yard maintenance fan anyway, so add a dog barking for 2 solid hours and the situation goes very sour. I wouldn't go to the police unless my neighbors told me flat out they wouldn't do anything. As to the window part, you should have plenty of ventilation if your home/apartment isn't ancient. I dislike earplugs as well, and like zapatos I think white noise is essential. People who've had children appreciate masking the normal night sounds, because we know full well if something out of place makes a noise, we're awake immediately, standing in the hallway in our underwear brandishing a tennis racket.

Dave Moore has been banned for running out of basic civility quickly, and assuming his stompey boots are the right footwear for all occasions. Many other websites will welcome his brusque, not-here-to-learn manner, I'm sure.

! Moderator Note Hey! This is COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE! If you don't know what the definition of "retarded" is, please don't misuse it. Just as you don't seem to understand how theories gain their strength by constant testing and refinement, if you don't know you should ask questions rather than make snarky assertions. I'm not sure why you've become so uncivil of late. Is it really because your ideas and knowledge are being questioned? I suggest you check your ego at the door and accept that nobody here is interested in anything but discussing mainstream science in the most meaningful way we can. If you can't obey our most important rule, this site may not be for you. There are science discussion sites that will let you get away with this kind of behavior, but we aren't one of them. Report this post if you disagree, or PM me or another staff member, but don't bother discussing this in-thread. Civility isn't an option.

There is no missing piece in the theory. What's missing is the need to stretch the theory to cover abiogenesis. It wasn't ever supposed to be about how life began. It's about the changes in allele frequency within a population over time.

I'd say it's the anonymity that allows for a lack of consequences, and that's what emboldens many. It's not just that you're hidden; you're sequestered from most repercussions you'd face IRL. When you say inflammatory crap at home, your family gives you hell for it and hopefully sets you straight. You're invested in their good wishes and good feelings towards you, and you weight their opinions more heavily than others. If you troll the women you know with misogynistic attitudes, you get immediate negative reinforcement with palpable consequences. On the web, you skate away without even an electronic sting. I'm not sure if the internet is mostly or just partially to blame, but I think many people aren't getting the kind of feedback from friends and family they used to. Too many people act as if their grandparents aren't going to light into them if they pop off with vacuous unpleasantries in decent company. Perhaps the parents and grandparents have become too afraid of all the weirdness the web tells them about.

What about believing something you've thoroughly researched and studied? If you knew everything humans currently know about X, wouldn't your beliefs about X be much more than assumption? At some point, doesn't a belief that's backed up by mountains of evidence become trustworthy?

! Moderator Note OK, interjecting your own ideas into someone else's speculative thread is against our rules. I've split your post into its own thread. Our rules also state that discussions take place here, and they can't rely on clicking outside links to start them. Please give us an overview of your ideas, and what you wish to discuss about them. Give enough for the members to see the merit in further investigation.

scherado has been banned for multiple instances of rule-breaking in his quest to become the Troll King. We apologize that his interruption in the normal rational discourse was all noise and no signal whatsoever. Roger Dynamic Motion has been banned, NOT for incessant hijacking and almost daily irrationality, but for failing to respond to requests for clarity, EVER. Discussion requires that we express our ideas so others can understand. We wish him good luck with his ideas, whatever they were supposed to be.

I assumed he was running for office. Gallup had him in the lead, but since his croup is near the end, it's a dead heat now.

Employers now like to claim they've been burdened, but iirc, employers offered access to health insurance as part of a benefits package to attract workers. If they are backing down on this part of the deal, employees should be compensated.

! Moderator Note You know what? We're done with your off-topic announcements of childish pique. Feel free to use the Ignore system, but the next time you post about it, YOU. ARE. GONE. Report this note if you want, PM me or another staff member if you like, but don't respond here in-thread.

There are a large number of people who want to increase the already heavy advantage their money gives them, and if they are "job-givers" they'd be able to pocket the funds they normally have to match on employee health insurance. So the motive with them appears to be profit. There are a large number of people who want to be judges of morality, and dictate who is worthy in society, and who is not. The motive with these folks seems to be control. This issue straddles both groups pretty nicely. Both can pretend is all about fairness, while doing unfair things to other people.

! Moderator Note This is NOT a conspiracy theory site. Opinions are fine, but this sort of "impressionism" guesswork is fake news fodder, and we just don't want it here anymore. I hope you understand. Stick to what we know about this unfolding story.

! Moderator Note This thread has been reported multiple times, and I'm tempted to simply shut it down. It started with a terribly fallacious OP, and waitforufo's sneering approach as usual attracted the flames. Some couldn't resist the temptation to personally insult. We can discuss these issues, and I'm not going to make you start over, but the fallacies and personal attacks need to stop. There is a difference between a person's ideas/opinions/stances and the person themself, and we will honor that difference here or we won't talk at all. It would also help a healthy DISCUSSION for members to acknowledge points made by others. If you make a statement someone later shows is false, the intellectually honest thing to do is admit it, learn, and move on armed with better knowledge. This also helps keep things CIVIL. Don't respond to this, talk to each other. Act like we may be able to learn something.

It will probably take more than an admin to find posts from a member with no posts. An Iraqi WMD hunter, maybe.

! Moderator Note No, it's not. It's up to you to explain yourself when you start a thread about any topic. If you can't overcome your communication problems, we can't discuss your ideas. Nobody knows what you're talking about, most of the time. Can you fix this, please? We can't keep asking you to help us understand when you won't take the time and effort to do the most basic job of expressing yourself coherently. If you can increase your efforts we can talk about your topics, but most of your last several posts are just Trash.

! Moderator Note It shouldn't take so many posts to start a discussion. Take your time writing an opening post that explains what you want to talk about. Try again with a different thread. This one doesn't make sense.

! Moderator Note First, if swansont (or any mod/admin) is participating in a discussion, he doesn't actively moderate it (with some exceptions in Speculations, where the rules don't require as much judgement). He's not wielding any unfair authority to support his positions. I suspect instead he's using his knowledge of science as a working atomic physicist to support the explanations he uses. ! Moderator Note Second, it's abundantly clear you don't understand much of what you're defending, since you can't support it with evidence or make a testable prediction that anyone studying science could use to verify the accuracy of your claims. Science isn't about finding proof, it's about finding the best natural explanations, which are always the ones that have a preponderance of evidence to support them. Third, you've failed to support your arguments according to the rules of this section. You're also trying to drag our standards down rather than using more rigor to meet them, and that's not what you agreed to when you joined and said you'd follow the rules. If you wanted to test your ideas in a moderated science discussion forum, you shouldn't be pushing back so hard against the constructive criticism. Thread closed.

There are situations as above where differences in gender between humans change the outcome (although it's not consistent - not every professionally trained man can outfight every professionally trained woman). There are situations where it makes no difference at all. In sports, I think ethics are next to impossible to judge with so much competition around. Extreme winning tactics and fair play are not always compatible. But women regularly beat men in equestrian sports, long-distance swimming, rock-climbing, motor sports, and most gymnastics. The sport makes all the difference. Tailor it to showcase strength and speed and it will feature the strongest and fastest.

! Moderator Note If the next post doesn't have some evidential support for your claims, this thread gets closed. There are so many sites on the web where members are happy to discuss your wild, unsubstantiated guesswork. This science discussion forum has stricter guidelines, that's all, and you're not meeting them. If you need help with some aspect of science, it's ALWAYS better to ask questions than to guess. No more unsupported astrological/numerological garbage. If you're challenging mainstream with this, it's not worthy of Speculations and it will go in the Trash. If your next post doesn't offer a decent reason to spend member time on it, this will go in the Trash.

I would add that it seems aimed at attracting attention to the article rather than accurately informing readers about the study. This is typical of pop-sci journalism, and critical reasoning is essential to avoid popular spin.

! Moderator Note This is a mainstream science section. Please save all speculative tangent discussions for their own thread in Speculations. They don't belong here.

I had a family member tell me that she believes we landed on the moon, but that the US government hired Stanley Kubrik to shoot the footage we see because the real footage didn't look as good. I mentioned that Snopes had debunked that particular bit of dishonesty, and told her about confirmation bias and how insidious it was since most people who emotionally believe something can't be talked out of it with reason and facts. She told me she wasn't like that at all. That's when I reminded her that we'd already had this conversation two years ago, the last time I heard her make that ignorant, asinine statement about Kubrick faking the moon landing. I described that incident as well, and I could tell she remembered it, but still chose to re-tell the misinformation whenever the subject comes up. The most bizarre part is, I could tell she was skeptical the second time I told her about the Snopes debunking as well. She will continue to spread the Kubrick lie.

Set up an email account (CleanWoodedHills@gmail, or something like that), and post a sign at the area asking for volunteers for a morning of cleanup before winter, and see if there are others who also consider it their favorite local park. You're a better judge about the area with regard to whether a major effort will cause more harm or good. I just know that a job like that is a great opportunity for many hands.

My local parks manager told me the best thing citizens can do is organize clean-up groups to move junk the city would need a paid crew for. Don't try to move stuff that would require special gear (like cars, chemicals, or buried items). The bulk of the smaller trash that can be safely removed by a team of volunteers with 30 gallon bags helps the parks departments focus on the things they alone should be removing. Make sure the local press knows what you're doing. There will be a politician who can score some points by showing concerned citizens pitching in, and it will increase your chances of getting help from the city on the nastiest stuff. And thank you very much for your effort and expense, and contributing to the enrichment of an important piece of human environment. Thanks too from all the voiceless species you're helping.